Yuan's Fall Annoys the Neighbors

Link to Dollar Pulls Down China's Currency; Other Countries Scramble

By

Alex Frangos

Updated Oct. 26, 2009 12:01 am ET

HONG KONG -- As the dollar continues to weaken, concerns are mounting in much of Asia over another descending currency: the Chinese yuan.

For more than a year, China has kept the yuan largely unchanged against the dollar. So, like the dollar, the yuan has been falling steadily against the currencies of China's neighbors, including the Malaysian ringgit, the Indonesian rupiah and the South Korean won. That makes goods produced in those countries more expensive compared with China's.